For a few people in Argentina, and some further afield, the G20 conference on 30 November 2018, seemed to hint at a door opening when Theresa May, British prime minister, arrived for a rushed photo opportunity with a collection of world leaders in Buenos Aires. There was little time for anything more, and back home, Brexit beckoned. Soon afterwards, on 10 December, came the news that Argentina and Britain would co-chair the UN’s Equal Rights Coalition to monitor and counter gender discrimination. Previous to both events, in November 2018, when the Humanitarian Project Plan signed by Argentina and Britain in 2016, reported that 105 bodies of Argentine soldiers killed in 1982 and buried at Darwin Cemetery had so far been identified out of a total of 114. The remains of 105 people now had names and families and ceased to be known only as ‘soldier known unto God’. It was positive and welcome news, although Argentine officials had provided scant help.
The Malvinas–Falkland Islands (the UN denomination agreed in the mid 1960s), belong to Argentina, or should belong to Argentina. Historically and geographically, that assertion seems reasonable.
In any case, that is the cliché imposed on Argentines as from elementary school eight or nine decades ago. The truth is that we do not know how to find a solution of any kind beyond the cliché. Even so, it is worth noting that, recently in Argentina, there are from time to time different voices expressing greater moderation without the imposition of political passion. They are quieter, more reasoned voices, counselling against the shallowness and stridency of national populism. This new discourse, seen in articles, some interviews and in the paragraphs of some books, can vary, upholding different arguments; and in each case, there is the need for a specific focus on a wider horizon in tune with the times.
There must be a solution, of course, in the long run; one that will be constructive for two different societies and that might even put behind us the short-termism that we have suffered, and which is our Argentine style. Such a solution will require learning a new form of diplomatic negotiation, in diplomatic circumstances.
For the present case, it will be interesting to take the 30th anniversary in 2012 of the South Atlantic conflict, which produced a substantial volume of articles and media commentary of all kinds. Some of the views showed new elements; others were simply repetitious and brought little novelty. One example, too-often forgotten, is the case of 17 intellectuals who tried to publicise a document that recommended taking into account the different factors in the dispute over the Islands. Equally interesting was the reaction produced by the text from that group of 17 intellectuals and journalists, including writer Beatriz Sarlo, philosopher Santiago Kovadloff and journalist Jorge Lanata, among others, in the last week of February 2012. The date chosen was a little over a month before the anniversary of the Argentine landing at Port Stanley/Puerto Argentino three decades previously. Those signing advocated the need for a more relaxed approach to the Islands and their inhabitants and included the argument that the Islanders’ rights should be respected. The statement, which had been hinted at in two columns by Lanata who also suggested the need for scholarships and exchanges, sparked a wave of threats and insults which were out of all proportion to what had been written. The stridency of the objections grew to a point where the signatories were unable to find a venue from which to make their opinions public. One site was made available, but the owners of two or three other venues refused, arguing that they feared reprisals. Finally, the manifesto was not made public because the date chosen for publication coincided with the tragedy at the Once railway terminal of the Sarmiento Line in Buenos Aires on 23 February 2012, when 52 commuters were killed.1 Besides that terrible incident which was later found to be the product in part of existing corruption, the refusal of possible venues for launching and debating a moderate statement was clear evidence that there was public fear in Argentina. We lived in a fearful society, with a varied list of causes for fear. It should not be denied. And if there was fear of hearing an opinion different from that of a government that claimed to represent the majority, could a society or a country be seen as reliable when government and population deny the existence of fear and play down the evidence? This is just one of several circumstances regarded as minor. But the fact is that wide-ranging negotiation is complicated if there is the presence of fear in that society. Fear can be a poor counsellor (even if in some specific circumstances it can be admitted as an acceptable argument).
Another small contribution to a new form of argument was an article by the historian Luis Alberto Romero, who asked if Argentina really wanted the Islands, given that they constitute such a useful distraction from situations which happen accidentally or from sensitive decisions taken at the centre of power (La Nación, 1 April 2012). And on 21 March 2012, the same newspaper published an article by the author and journalist Claudio Negrete, who asked himself whether we (Argentines) deserved to own the Islands with so much else to be sorted out on the mainland. On 26 March, a former cabinet minister and former senator for the Radical Party, lawyer and historian Rodolfo Terragno, issued a little-noted circular encouraging the idea that new forms of negotiation with Britain should be sought. To be regretted is the fact that politicians from government and opposition parties did not use the anniversary to try to offer fresh ideas for possible ways forward, a few of them being still trapped in the attitudes that in a previous generation led to the support of the landing ordered by General Leopoldo Fortunato Galtieri in 1982.
Mention of Galtieri is played down, very much down, nowadays, and the role of the badly armed and badly dressed soldiers is enhanced at every anniversary. But if history should ever be pushed to make people think that Galtieri was a leader with a wild ambition to do something great for his country, it will be important that ‘history’ should remind us that he was a murderer, a cheat, an incompetent leader and, of lesser consequence, a drunk.
The above events, which now feel like the distant past, draw attention to the repetitious nature of the claims and counter-claims. The fact is that there has been no firm move by a country (Argentina) that believes itself to be in search of a solution of substance, even if it is one having to bear the political weight of a defeated army – a painful experience to live with. Still, in contemporary terms and with many ‘newer’ palliatives available in modern diplomacy, Argentina has not been able to look for fresh ways of negotiating, or genuine diplomatic approaches that might allow facilitate change.
Even more regrettable in the political classes is that they were, perhaps still are, the country’s spokespeople and representatives who collectively do not look reliable. What is worse, they ensure that the whole of Argentine society fails to appear trustworthy to the world. In fact, the political community’s behaviour allows the conclusion that we are very good company individually but a disaster as a society. The absence of the political or diplomatic ability to offer renewed and moderate opinion leads us into a series of dead ends. On a personal basis, we are quick to demand respect for our rights (in this case the territorial claim) but in no hurry to show equal respect for those of others (note the diplomatic contortions and low respect for the Islanders). The anarchic-need-for-talks front we offer, to be repetitive, is confusing and does not make us reliable.
One of the keys to the argument is how to contemplate the Malvinas– Falklands as a subject in the context of a normal relationship with the United Kingdom. We were taught that the Islands are Argentine. Physically they are not, even if it can be argued that they are sitting on the continental platform. We believe they should be part of the national territory, but for now they belong to the Islanders and the penguins. Based on those leading facts, claim and possession, we should be able to contemplate all the other elements that hamper us in moving on to good dialogue and negotiation. Anything else will mean we cannot be taken seriously.
The favourable vote at the United Nations General Assembly each year is a mere nod at Argentina. No more: a great number of diplomatic missions installed in New York will continue to vote for Buenos Aires as many times as needed in exchange for some other concession or arrangement (these issues can be expensive, although they are of only minor significance in domestic elections) in the hope that friendly nations will rise up as bastions against colonialism. But even that will mean little. This brings to mind action in Venezuela in 1982, when it was announced that there would be a lights-out protest in solidarity with Argentina. It was all the Venezuelans were prepared to grant a regime about which their government, at that time led by President Carlos Andrés Pérez, had been severely critical on more than one occasion.
It is not reasonable at this point to think that the Malvinas–Falklands issue can be broken up into little packets of topics which we would like to discuss (history, territorial rights, Islander rights, weekly flights, fishery rights, etc.) and another set containing the less attractive matters (combat, the veterans, the dead, Argentina’s international image, disorderly street demonstrations or individual statements, sometimes encouraged by government quarters, etc.). There have been some promising events, such as in the aforementioned identification of dead soldiers, some cooperation on fisheries, and connecting flights, etc. But the eventual transfer of government of the Malvinas–Falklands, the negotiated run-up to a shared administration for an effective transition or change of administration, the drafting of a constitution for a territory different from the other 23 Argentine provinces and which might consider preferential treatment for a variety of reasons, must incorporate all these matters, big and small. The war in 1982 delayed any possibility of a transfer or change for a generation – and we are going for a second generation – and imposed a failure to move on from the policies of door-slamming and vituperation that could well see a third generation come and go.
It would be advisable not to play down the fact that the two most important steps towards the eventual possibility of a solution between Buenos Aires and London were taken at the United Nations. First, both sides submitted to the recommendations of the Decolonisation Committee (the Labour government in Britain in the 1960s saw it as a good idea, if difficult to apply without offending part of the electorate). Second, talks were held more recently by the late ambassador Lucio García del Solar (1922–2010) towards the resumption of diplomatic relations.2
Thus it is that within another generation or a little more, we might hope to see one positive action with a long-term view, one with a thought to the years ahead and not just to the immediate months: the resolution (2065) secured during the government of Dr Arturo Illia at the United Nations in 1965. This resolution imposed on both sides the need to negotiate an arrangement that might put an end to the colonial status of the Islands (which from then on had to be identified formally as the Malvinas–Falklands). Argentina went ahead with plans to improve the landing strip in the Islands; the British Hospital in Buenos Aires made available ‘beds for Islanders’ in case of emergencies; and the former Argentine domestic gas utility company, Gas del Estado, introduced a supply system.3 The postal system, via mainland Argentina, was improved. That resolution, reached by a government to which, in Argentina, little value or notice is given, was the accord which has been much quoted by one and all five decades later but which in essence, was rubbished by a military expedition staged nearly four decades ago.
Seen at a distance, the ploy by foreign minister Guido Di Tella (1931–2001) – whom, again, repetitiously and emphatically few wish to remember – of sending Islanders Christmas presents in the early nineties in the form of VHS cassettes of the Pingu character created by the BBC and, some time later a consignment of woolly bears (paid for out of Guido Di Tella’s own pocket), may now seem a decision (or a form of gaining access) far more enlightened than what followed a decade later. That involved asking or ordering local political representatives to search for adjectives with which to rubbish the government of David Cameron and his successors as ‘piratical and colonialist’. This latter seemed childish, while the toy ploy had elements of charm.
In Argentina we had a government that announced, on 1 March 2012, in an address aimed more at the cheering crowds than the diplomatic process, that there would be three flights a week to the Islands from the mainland. But months and years passed and no flight took off. This came from a president whose husband, in a statement also aimed at the crowd, told the British to ‘fly off’. That was when new ways to be taken seriously should have been found. The lessons of diplomatic failure are varied and abundant, but it must be clear now, in 2020, that nothing done before this date will be of much use.
The age before failure is now distant. My father, who farmed in Río Negro, and others of his generation further south, remembered the ’thirties when farmers in small craft (and good weather) crossed the water between the Santa Cruz mainland and the Islands to visit family and friends.
Argentina has tested theoretical ways of blockading the Islands. Little real effect arises from such thinking. That may be because there are people in the corridors of power who know well that boycotts lead to no more than bad tempers and remonstration. If the flag of the Falkland Islands cannot enter Mercosur ports, does it mean much? The suggested boycott of imports of British products is also theoretical. The TamLan (Chilean/Brazilian) flights are always under official scrutiny. Cruise ships at times do not reach Antarctica because they cannot take on provisions in Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego. None of this will force Whitehall to negotiate. London will be portrayed as the victim of a belligerent nation which, in 1982, went to war and is now a nuisance.
Politics and diplomacy in both Britain and Argentina will have to put aside short–term action and concentrate on the medium term. This should take place within a generation, the next preferably, and no more time should be wasted on vacuous statements or accusations which achieve nothing. Self-determination has to secure international acceptance or be put aside. In this sense, Argentina’s diplomatic body has to convince the world that self-determination is not a sovereign solution. The British Nationality (Falkland Islands) Act of 1982 was a parliamentary reform in an emergency which did not substantially change the nationality and residence act of 1981. Now (and since then) the Islanders are part of Great Britain, with passports almost identical to those of any British citizen or subject. But if that is the case, the Islanders cannot be the arbiters in a conflict between their own country and Argentina.
And in the reckoning, Argentines cannot cheat themselves into arguing that opinion surveys are real indicators of voters’ intention. In 2012, one of those opinion surveys, commissioned by the conservative Daily Telegraph, showed that many Britons see the Malvinas as an Argentine territory. In the circumstances, this is an attractive fantasy that decides nothing. Neither did it influence the then prime minister David Cameron, who knew that the Conservative vote would not back the survey results, mainly because the British voter would be of the opinion that abandoning the Islanders in the present circumstances would be an act of treason. The survey in fact informed us that the British voter cares little for the Islands or to whom they belong, and that Argentina should use that fact seriously to seek negotiations from other angles. For Argentines, there is a need to appear confident, reliable and to be trusted.
Argentina (2003–15) was ruled by a family regime which considered it was reasonable to pursue negotiation by means of threats and harsh language. It is not clear how that language could be used to negotiate any form of treaty. For example, the same regime as that led by Néstor Kirchner cancelled landing rights on the continent for flights to the Islands. That policy has not changed, even with the weekly flights suggested by President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. More helpful might have been the implementation of a moderate, convincing tone aimed at establishing the genuinely desired and useful frequency of flights. It is not reasonable to assume that weekly flights could be established when at the same time a head of state was planning to visit London for a summit meeting at which she might have ticked off the prime minister of the host country. Of course, this could be applauded back home, but beyond the immediate effect of the stunt, not much would be secured on the Malvinas.
The debate in Argentina over the Malvinas–Falklands, where the discourse on all sides begins (as in the case of this article) with the affirmation that the Islands should belong to Argentina, could improve if a few minor circumstances were taken into account.
First, the dispute over the Islands should not be seen as an issue that could be overcome in a single term of government. This was in evidence during the government (1989–99) of Carlos Menem. It is best to start thinking in terms of a more distant future, which is what international politics advises. Sturdy trees are planted for the benefit of our grandchildren, without thinking that we could be sitting in their shade by the end of the summer vacation.
Second, the Islanders have to be convinced that we could be good, or at least amiable neighbours, and that we could be good citizens beyond the fact of being bad invaders, offensive and authoritarian. Even if we have decided that we do not like the ‘Kelpers’ (a name the Islanders dislike because it refers to an alga, healthy in terms of nutrition, but not one anybody would want to be named after, given that it is a weed), the Islanders are there, a few with an ancestry running back through three or four generations, and many would remain even if Britain were to transfer administration to Argentina. And the rights and wishes of those people will have to be taken into account, just as we claim to respect any community on Argentine soil.
Third, there is a need to be selective with texts that can be quoted or are to be used for reference; there are too many and they are too repetitive. However, an example of what should be avoided is described by the author and journalist Carlos Gabetta (former editor of the Argentine edition of Le Monde Diplomatique). In an article first published in Argentina in the newspaper Perfil (10 March 2012),4 Gabetta remembers signing a statement with well-known writers such as Julio Cortázar (1914–84) and Osvaldo Soriano (1943–97), among others. The writers said that, a) the Malvinas belonged to Argentina, b) this fact is acknowledged throughout the world, c) the military dictatorship had staged an invasion because of issues in domestic politics, d) British action and US support appeared to have been planned well ahead and e) Argentina ran the risk of seeing its rights postponed.
The full statement is reduced to telegraphic length here but is, even now, valid in part. The materialisation of rights has been postponed. However, the fact of this being stated in a ‘communiqué’ – with a number of similar partisan statements – had the strange effect of turning readers who were opponents of the regime into patriotic defenders of the national cause (after June 1982 it was hard to find any defenders of the cause), and assured the Parisian signatories a catalogue of threats. Argentines abroad reflected their fellow nationals at home: any person who disagreed was a traitor. And the threats were not isolated. It was common practice throughout the country and could not be ignored. Trying to be indifferent to these far-off incidents makes us less reliable. Where Gabetta and colleagues may have failed is on the fourth point. There is no evidence to date that shows the United Kingdom wanted or needed the Islands in March 1982, before the landing.
What did exist after 2 April, if not before – and Argentina’s officials did not want to see it – was the agreement of support between Ronald Reagan, president of the USA, and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, allegedly based in part on the US leader’s admiration for his British counterpart’s style of government. A historical ‘special relationship’ existed between the two countries too. At that time, there was little care about the risk of the UK turning its back on the European Community: Thatcher wanted the trade that Europe, and later the Soviet Union, could build with Britain. For such a purpose (trade) Thatcher wanted an efficient and modern nation without the weight of old colonies, even if her political discourse often referred to the imperial progress of old. Patriotism on the right is always superior to that on the left, and the pragmatism of the right allows it to ignore often the patriotic side of a political equation if circumstances so require. In 1981, Thatcher had reduced the Islanders’ status as British subjects. That was part of the new nationality law. Also, we can believe or reject the reports in the months just before the conflict that, in 1982, spokesmen for the Foreign Office in London or other sources had approached Argentina’s ambassador to Britain, Carlos Ortiz de Rozas, right up to the last moment, asking for or offering an arrangement concerning the Islands. There are those who believe no such offers existed, or that if contact was made, it was simply a form of distraction and delay or even a hoax. The messages did exist on paper, but could have been forged, hence the mention of offers of shared administration might have been nonsense. However, years later, Ambassador Ortiz de Rozas went on record as saying that had there been no war the Islands would have been governed by Argentina within a short time.
However, a more recent envoy at the Argentine embassy in London, Ambassador Federico Mirré, wrote a series of articles in the newspaper Perfil at the time of the 30th anniversary tracing the history of the Argentine claim and playing down the war. It does not seem reasonable to invoke 200 years of history and claims if in more recent times guns were fired in anger. There is the enormous political weight of men killed in combat, of the wounded and of the fighting itself (even if in Argentina the veterans have often been treated with indifference because the wider public could not stand the shame of defeat).
Turning history on its head and asking ‘what if ’ – a line that Argentine political analyst Rosendo Fraga likes taking – what if the plan attributed to general Galtieri and admiral Jorge Isaac Anaya to land, raise a flag, salute and withdraw, with full naval support in open sea, had worked? It would have been a remarkable strike: it would have shown the world how easy it was to seize claimed territory; it would have shown great military and political cunning; and would have given credit to Galtieri and friends. Perhaps for the future benefit of Argentina, the plan did not happen and the venture failed. When the landing took place, every Argentine general ran to share Galtieri’s Black Label scotch and share in the game, while it seemed to be successful.
And when the Malvinas–Falklands become Argentine, what will happen? Will the package tours rush in on three flights a week? Will the estate agents and developers see wealth overnight and ruin nature’s beauty, just because the Islands ‘are ours’? That too, can be seen as a minor issue, but it carries weight in international negotiations at a time of greater concern for the environment. Argentina will have to bear in mind that such issues are important to a large part of the European electorate. The fear of neglect and damage does influence decisions. For a start, negotiators have to look no further than the disgusting urban coastline on the Atlantic coast of southern Buenos Aires province. It is not unreasonable that everything said here be dismissed on the agenda of a foreign ministry that has failed at diplomacy because it is felt that international politics only deals in major issues. It is no longer that way in many parts of the world, and should not be in this particular case. Of course, there are claims that go back 180 years or more. They would also have to include the attempt by Buenos Aires governor Juan Manuel de Rosas to exchange administration of the Islands for the outstanding debt to Barings in 1837, and the many speeches at the United Nations general assembly. But we cannot forget that there was a war; and the dead, the heroes, the veterans from both countries cannot simply be pushed aside. The Malvinas dispute needs a new form of negotiation.
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1 The tragedy drew little concern from President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s government.
2 The first talks were held during the three-year government of Arturo U. Illia (1900–83) and the second during the government of Carlos Menem (1989–99), two governments that, for one reason or another, Argentina does not want to remember nowadays.
3 This was a well-intentioned move, if not perfectly implemented.
4 Originally printed in Le Monde, May 1982.